You Don’t Eat Food Off The Ground & Other Teachable Moments

Over the weekend we took the kids to a local interactive science museum thing. It was their cheaper admission day, as well s Super Bowl Sunday, so we thought what with everyone watching sport ball and chowing down on bean dip, it’d be less chaotic and more fun. We were right.

The kids had a great time playing with all sorts of cool science-y things, and I made it about two hours before becoming socially overstimulated and over it. A good time was had by all.

We were just about to our van when Levi noticed something on the ground. Someone had spilled a good pile of popcorn right outside of his door.

“Popcorn!” he exclaimed with joy.

“Buddy, you can’t eat that.”

“But it’s popcorn.”

He looked at me confused as if to say, “But, Mom, it’s popcorn. I’m two and even I can recognize that it’s food. What’s the problem? Why can’t I eat it?”

It’s strange the things you have to teach your kids that you don’t even think about. I mean, when you’re pregnant or have a baby you think about teaching them to talk and walk and about colors and shapes and whatnot. Those are the givens that everyone thinks about. But other teachable moments surprise you when they’re looking you in the eye.

Like you don’t eat food found in a parking lot. And you don’t squirt hair gel all over the bathroom. And you don’t wake up at 2 a.m. and decide it’s time to play. And you most definitely do not scream for me from the living room saying you need help instead of calmly walking to the office where I am right now and asking nicely for help. Not that that’s what’s happening right now at all.

There’s always something to teach kids. Always. And it’s exhausting. We’re moving past the middle of the night wake-ups and into the realm of why this and why not that and I think it’s almost more exhausting than cuddling at 3 a.m. because it requires me to think of ways to explain things to a small child that I take for granted for already knowing.

Not gonna lie; These days I think I’d prefer a teething baby to attempting to explain the color turquoise to my three-year-old.